$500,000+ revenue on Shopify!

[Sanj Modha]

I posted this over at FB and it made some dents. I think it could help someone here too:

Today marks an important milestone for me. It's one year of going full time on Shopify. I have 3 stores now with an excess of $500,000 in revenue (2 are newer launched in the last few weeks). Profit is $200,000.

I'm not here to brag or to release any dumb course. I'm here to inspire. To quote Biggy Smalls "It was all a dream...".

I'm actually embarrassed to post this because I know guys in here making these figures A MONTH. But you gotta start somewhere right?

This store took a dip recently due to FB ads playing up but that taught me an important lesson. I'll post it below.

I started with a vision and a road map to success. Here are my top 10 tips for achieving the same:

1) Follow the right people and unfollow the rest. Most gurus are bullshit.

2) Get into a routine. I meditate, power pose (see Amy Cuddy's video on TED), and do some stretches before starting my day. How you do anything is how you do everything.

3) Read for 30 minutes EVERYDAY. Wow...I wish I knew this when I was 18 years old. Read anything and everything. Start with sales, marketing and mix it up with fiction. I alternate between the two genres.

4) Don't work weekends. Seriously, I haven't worked a weekend in years. Spend time with your loved ones, your kids, your dog. Money cannot substitute that.

5) Learn processes. Bruce Lee called it right. Success is about stripping everything away and processes help you do that.

6) Do not rely on any one thing for your income. This is my biggest mistake to date. I was focusing on FB traffic without considering email marketing or Adwords. Now I use all 3 in my arsenal to generate sales. I'm actually in the process of replicating this revenue with Adwords traffic only.

7) "Offer value first" - I'm sorry but that's bullshit. You don't open a store in your local mall to give things away. You do it to make money. I know people will disagree but that's the cold hard truth. If you don't believe me - watch Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank. Offer a sizzling product to the right audience and you will make money. Truth.

8) Be a nice person. Yeah the world is full of douche bags but you don't need to be one of them. I'm heavily influenced by eastern philosophies and I live in India now so I guess it's easier but if you're struggling in life, close your eyes, take a deep breath and exhale for 10 seconds. It's a Zen practise I use all the time.

9) Network, network, network - find people who propel you forwards. Join a pack of lions. Become the leader.

10) If your productivity sucks. Go use the Pomodoro Technique. It works!

I didn't get here by myself. I met some extraordinary people who mentored me, showed me the path, ridiculed my ideas but ultimately shaped my character. I thank you all and you know who you are.

Gary Vee walks into any room thinking he's the best but also realizing that his work doesn't matter. Make your ego your friend and drown out that negativity.

I'm the proud son of working class immigrants. I didn't know anything but I learnt it all. Success isn't born. It's made.

If I can do it so can you. I also want to thank the entire team at Shopify for making this possible. My goal for next year is $1m/store.

Good luck.

 

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[Vigilante]

I posted this over at FB and it made some dents. I think it could help someone here too:

Today marks an important milestone for me. It's one year of going full time on Shopify. I have 3 stores now with an excess of $500,000 in revenue (2 are newer launched in the last few weeks). Profit is $200,000.

I'm not here to brag or to release any dumb course. I'm here to inspire. To quote Biggy Smalls "It was all a dream...".

I'm actually embarrassed to post this because I know guys in here making these figures A MONTH. But you gotta start somewhere right?

This store took a dip recently due to FB ads playing up but that taught me an important lesson. I'll post it below.

I started with a vision and a road map to success. Here are my top 10 tips for achieving the same:

1) Follow the right people and unfollow the rest. Most gurus are bullshit.

2) Get into a routine. I meditate, power pose (see Amy Cuddy's video on TED), and do some stretches before starting my day. How you do anything is how you do everything.

3) Read for 30 minutes EVERYDAY. Wow...I wish I knew this when I was 18 years old. Read anything and everything. Start with sales, marketing and mix it up with fiction. I alternate between the two genres.

4) Don't work weekends. Seriously, I haven't worked a weekend in years. Spend time with your loved ones, your kids, your dog. Money cannot substitute that.

5) Learn processes. Bruce Lee called it right. Success is about stripping everything away and processes help you do that.

6) Do not rely on any one thing for your income. This is my biggest mistake to date. I was focusing on FB traffic without considering email marketing or Adwords. Now I use all 3 in my arsenal to generate sales. I'm actually in the process of replicating this revenue with Adwords traffic only.

7) "Offer value first" - I'm sorry but that's bullshit. You don't open a store in your local mall to give things away. You do it to make money. I know people will disagree but that's the cold hard truth. If you don't believe me - watch Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank. Offer a sizzling product to the right audience and you will make money. Truth.

8) Be a nice person. Yeah the world is full of douche bags but you don't need to be one of them. I'm heavily influenced by eastern philosophies and I live in India now so I guess it's easier but if you're struggling in life, close your eyes, take a deep breath and exhale for 10 seconds. It's a Zen practise I use all the time.

9) Network, network, network - find people who propel you forwards. Join a pack of lions. Become the leader.

10) If your productivity sucks. Go use the Pomodoro Technique. It works!

I didn't get here by myself. I met some extraordinary people who mentored me, showed me the path, ridiculed my ideas but ultimately shaped my character. I thank you all and you know who you are.

Gary Vee walks into any room thinking he's the best but also realizing that his work doesn't matter. Make your ego your friend and drown out that negativity.

I'm the proud son of working class immigrants. I didn't know anything but I learnt it all. Success isn't born. It's made.

If I can do it so can you. I also want to thank the entire team at Shopify for making this possible. My goal for next year is $1m/store.

Good luck.

The first person replying to this that asks him what he sells is getting banned from the thread.

Thank you for sharing this.

 

[Sanj Modha]

So share the nuggets, what has your mentor done/said/showed/introduced you to/given for you to get you going on this path? Can you share that so others can follow in your steps?

I am happy share two big nuggets:

1) I learnt the art of building processes which helped me to automate my business and scale up faster. You can do the same by reading up Kaizen, Kanban, Six Sigma methodology. I personally like the Kanban approach using Trello. I know that if I'm not around my VA can work autonomously.

2) I know it's cheesy but it's never about the products you sell. It's about the knowledge you acquire. That means research your audience before selling products or building a business. What do they like? How old are they etc? My mentor sells t-shirts in the most competitive niches. It doesn't stop him from making millions.

The biggest mistake I see with IM is people find/create products then try to sell it. This is wrong.

Find the audience first and build the business around them. This is the path to least resistance. In my business, I research the audience, demographics, income levels before picking a product. I then look at my competitor sites and see how much it sells for. Most of that $500,000+ came from 4 products only. The rest were email upsells.

Don't cut corners.

 

[Envision]

So we hear this often. Find a large audience, then give them what they want or need or find out what they want. Any practical methods you have successfully used to find this sort of thing out? Run surveys etc?

For instance the pet market is huge, niche down to dogs. What practical methods can be used to find a gap or underserved opportunity here other than your own personal insight and intuition?

Say you are interested in yoga and believe the market is underserved with overpriced products that for the most part contain poor quality.

Go to Amazon and begin surveying different niches with Yoga

Say we look into yoga mats (super saturated) and you see this



It's a yoga mat that looks like it is dominating at the moment. Lots of reviews and variety of colors with a pretty fair price point. But it does have 1-3 star reviews meaning there have been customers that have a problem with the product and they need it to be fixed.




That means you can do better and if you can do better and SHOW people that its better than you will get the sale assuming you can market it and get it in front of people (this can be done on amazon via PPC).



Now as we can see there is a quality issue in the material (can you make the material thicker? stronger? more sturdy yet flexible?) as well as with its ability to stay in place. What type of material or coating is applied to prevent the product from moving/making noise?

It also doesnt have a strap amongst other issues that can be fixed and added to improve the product.

Continuing forward Amazon has gone ahead and provided you with a simple bundle opportunity by showing you that people are buying two items together at a higher cost



So what is stopping you from creating a foam roller/ yoga mat bundle and improving the quality of both of the products so that the customers on Amazon can have their needs filled?

Once you can do this with a product other needs in your niche become evident and you can duplicate the process repeatedly amongst products throughout your niche and eventually expand onto other sales channels because your product is good and you understand the market wants it.

PS: dont do yoga mats - they cost too much to ship via FBA due to their size and the market is saturated to all hell but this is an example. and assuming you can brand, import, and caculate costs to run a profitable business you should have no issues finding a need to improve and building a company around that.

Remember to not go for products but a market/niche. Have some vision when creating your company so that you can build something that is not just a couple money making products but a complete brand/company.

Edit: credit goes to @biophase for most of the details included here.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

Congrats on your success, man! Fully deserved.

Was it straightforward finding your dropshipper?

You need to dig around and start negotiating. Here's where I like to offer value first. Never approach a vendor and say "I want you to dropship for me. I can sell 50 units/day". It's the wrong angle. Instead go for "Hey buddy. I would like to propose a JV with you. If we can help you shift 50 units/day of product x, is that something that can help your business?".

Do you see the difference in psychology?

 

[Andy Black]

I don't bother with copywriting product pages. The visitor is on the site and interested. You need to close the sale by making them trust you. Ad copy is important on the ad itself.

Ditto.



They search: plumber dublin


Ad says: Dublin Plumber



Landing page says:

Looking for a plumber in Dublin?

Bullet 1
Bullet 2
Bullet 3

Tap to Call

 

[Sanj Modha]

That's amazing. Congratulations and well done.
I can't imagine the feeling looking at your monthly sales results like that, what a feeling that must be.


So what do you se.... just kidding

A serious question though;
How did you discover the need for your products?

At what moment did you apply copywriting for your products?

Thank you

I did some research on trends and what people talk about. You can do the same with Google Trends, forums, Reddit etc.

I don't bother with copywriting product pages. The visitor is on the site and interested. You need to close the sale by making them trust you. Ad copy is important on the ad itself.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

Great thread @Sanj Modha ! Short, to the point, and no bullshit. And....some Eastern philosophy suggestions which I think this Country desperately needs. Thanks for sharing.


So how did you start ? I mean...did you educate yourself and decide you were going to dropship, import, use your own website, etc to reach your goals ? Just generally....I'm not asking about product or specifics.

Also...have you lived in the U.S. before ? If so, does this help with business ?

Back in June 2015, I decided that I wanted a business on Shopify. I was making good money on Teespring but I wanted more control. Shopify gives you that with themes, customer data and mailing lists.

I believe that all success comes from the inside out. You need to nurture the mind because he who conquers the mind - conquers everything. This isn't new information. It's as old as the hills from Buddha to Napoleon Hill. They all studied the same source. You can call it God, Supreme Consciousness, the Creator, Metaphysics etc. I believe it to be same.

I haven't lived in the US but visited many times. You need to know the audiences well and you're in a better position than I am. But I hang out with a lot of Americans so that helps with the culture. Bruce Lee said become water. I immerse myself in what I do. It's the same difference. Adapt and move.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

Very inspiring!

If you do not mind sharing the answers to few questions:

• When you started your first shopify store, did you start with one product and gradually add more? Did you continue in the same niche you chose at the beginning or did you have to move around?
• Do you still handle packaging and shipment yourself or have you outsourced it to fullfillment centers to take care of it for you? If so, how soon did it happen and are there any lessons you would like to share?

Thank you

I launched my first store with about 50 products but I was only driving ads to around 4 and upselling the others. I sell generic items on the main store. 2 are niches.

I don't handle anything. I have dropshippers and wholesalers who do it for me.

 

[Fox]

I am realizing more and more that very little of the specifics really matter. Not that I am not grateful for your answers! Every product, business and path has too many variables to just copy someones formula. I think its all down to mindset, belief and process. Again - great results and thanks for sharing. I like just knowing that people can do this and that others on here are succeeding.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Ditto.



They search: plumber dublin


Ad says: Dublin Plumber



Landing page says:

Looking for a plumber in Dublin?

Bullet 1
Bullet 2
Bullet 3

Tap to Call

That's EXACTLY it. Once a visitor clicks on the ad - you need to CLOSE the sale. Ad copy is about getting visitors to click in the first place.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

Hi, didn't anyone tell you that drop shipping died in 2013.

Did it? Well it's 2016 and I'm still doing it.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

@AndyBlack - I didn't post this to get abused so I'm not sure what your TOS is.

You can remove it.

The thread will remain.

Truth always survives investigation. More people around here should ask more questions and not take everything at face value.

 

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[JasonR]

they cost too much to ship via FBA due to their size

While I agree that selling a yoga mat without some sort of huge competitive advantage is foolhardy, but dismissing products because they are "too much to ship via FBA" sounds straight out of the AMS course bullshit.

I have friends who sell things that are too "fragile" or too "heavy" for FBA and they do quite well.

I like to point this out because of the faulty thinking that goes into product decisions. Being Fragile and Heavy are never the sole reason to drop a product.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Amazing dude!
For someone who is interested in getting into the eCommerce industy, which books and ideas made the biggest impact for you?

I just jumped into it and started. Books like 4 Hour Work Week, Think & Grow Rich have been influential to me too.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Amazing post. Thanks for sharing this. You came out of the gate quite strong - how did you prepare pre launch.

You mention education and learning, what people and resources do you recommend that have helped you? Great thread. Rep on the way

The Shopify blog is very useful. There are some really smart cookies here as well. Just test, test, test. There is no secret.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Thread title is misleading (has become usual on here sadly..). Expected Shopify specifics and then stopped reading when I realized its just generic success tips..

200k profit is nice though!

Shopify is just a platform. This post could be about Magento, Woocommerce etc. That's not important. What's important is the processes and the knowledge you apply.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Can your items be found on amazon from a competitor?

I have such trouble wrapping my mind around anyone going outside of amazon to purchase items unless it's not on amazon. I haven't bought a product online that wasn't on amazon in years.

Don't worry too much about Amazon. I know it's a major competitor but you need to focus on your offer. Remember, you're bringing a great product to the right audience. That will always generate sales.

 

[Sanj Modha]

I am realizing more and more that very little of the specifics really matter. Not that I am not grateful for your answers! Every product, business and path has too many variables to just copy someones formula. I think its all down to mindset, belief and process. Again - great results and thanks for sharing. I like just knowing that people can do this and that others on here are succeeding.

Don't over analyze it too much. The process is more important than the results. Trust the process.

There is no secret. It's about information vs knowledge - there's a big difference. Knowledge is applied and once you understand the traffic source, your products and the audience - the magic starts.

 

[Sanj Modha]

I'd like to thank MJ for releasing an awesome book. It brought me here to a forum which I consider the very best now.

You need to believe. Ignite that fire inside you!

 

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[JDx]

That's amazing. Congratulations and well done.
I can't imagine the feeling looking at your monthly sales results like that, what a feeling that must be.


So what do you se.... just kidding

A serious question though;
How did you discover the need for your products?

At what moment did you apply copywriting for your products?

Thank you

 

[theag]

Thread title is misleading (has become usual on here sadly..). Expected Shopify specifics and then stopped reading when I realized its just generic success tips..

200k profit is nice though!

 

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[Sanj Modha]

Didn't read through whole thread, but when you customers see that the shipping address came from overseas? Does their expression become this --> :/

Quality is more important than origin. I know some folks want US made and that's fine too but you can't have it both ways. Either you buy domestic and pay more or pay less but get it from overseas manufacturers.

I would also like to state that China gets a really bad rep. I work with some outstanding suppliers who care about quality as much as I do. I'm not talking about cheap Frozen Elsa dresses.

Remember, Apple manufactures in China too. The key is finding the right supply chain.

 

[Sanj Modha]

You make it sound like easy math.

I like to keep as simple as possible. I get soooo many questions about "What's your CPC? Is 2% CTR enough?" etc etc. Just focus on money in vs money out. That pays the bills.

My reports track very little now. If I spend $1. I should make $2. That's about as simple as I can make it.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Great thread @Sanj Modha , can specially relate to the diversification of traffic. Wonder what kind of funnel and ads you have set up, straight product ads or content marketing? Tailored landing pages, or product pages?

Ive spent a great amount of time perfecting my product, now I need to uppen my ecom/ads game, would appreciate the help

Cheers

I sell direct from FB or Adwords. I don't have time for content marketing.

 

[Sanj Modha]

200k Nice! Curious to know what were you doing before you went full-time on Shopify? (Were you doing Shopify part-time at first or selling shirts on Teespring etc?

I started life on FB by selling dating leads. That was great until FB stopped it (too many blackhatters). Then I started selling shirts on Teespring. I did that for about 18 months before moving onto Shopify. I don't sell shirts anymore. The non-shirt market is worth trillions.

 

[Sanj Modha]

I don't want to know what you sell, but with all the hoopla in the past 12 months about Shopify ( and especially Shopify with dropship ), I would like to ask if this is the whole "free+shipping" model or if you are doing reg. sales at all.

Hopefully, that isn't asking too much info. However, I have Shopify stores and was curious about this trend and if that's what got you started.

Well I was selling shirts on Teespring and realized I didn't really own anything. At this point, Shopify was taking off so I decided to move across but focus on the non-shirts market. I wanted to go where the puck was going to quote a famous hockey legend. You can more or less sell anything on FB. I know guys selling $600-$800 mattresses and KILLING it. It's all about the offer + product + audience.

 

[Sanj Modha]

@Sanj Modha

1) What is your view on all these Shopify gurus who are making screenshots of 523,000,00 $ profits in one month with facebooks ads? To me, it seems they are selling something that used to work 2-4 years ago.

2) Can it still be done only with Facebook ads or you more recommend to focus on building a brand (long-term process)?

3) If ads have some traction (link clicks) but no purchase - How do you know when it's time to stop? In terms of - "not good targeting" or "product won't sell"

1 - I've never done $500,000/month so I don't know. In terms of FB ads - that's a TON of work. I have done some $20,000/days during the holiday season or on Black Fridays and it was pure madness. I was literally working 16-18 hour days running ads, scaling, testing etc. I know a guy who does $500,000/month revenue but he's fulfilment only so it's a different model. His sellers drive all the traffic.

2 - You can build a brand with FB ads. There's nothing wrong with it. After nearly 3 years of running a generic store, I decided to focus on more niche items like ladies handbags and watches. I sell less products, there's more profit and it's personalized i.e. we have our brand name on the product and packinging. It depends on what your goals are.

3 - That's the hardest thing in this business - finding a product to sell. I would suggest a few things:

- Is the price too high? Check the abandoned orders and that will tell you. If you're getting add to carts but no conversions - it's usually the price of the product or the shipping. Tweak one/both.

- Run split tests with two different interest groups. Sometimes, I'm in two minds over who should see my ads so I run a duplicate campaign but tweak the targeting.

- If you're not sure the product will fly - try an engagement ad but remove the outbound links. The copy should be "Would you buy this? Comment 'I Want It!' below". These are super cheap since the users aren't leaving FB and you will be rewarded with higher organic reach too. Wait for 20-50 comments then check the data. What states are clicking? What's the age ranges? Is it male or female etc. If the comments tell you the product will sell then run the same product to a Conversion ad. Obviously, change the ad copy and include your landing page links.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

People still do dropshipping? I thought customers get mad at the slow shipping times.

Not at all. I can dropship most of my items in 3 biz days or less. That's tracked too. In my experience, customer tolerance levels for shipping maxes out at 7 days. Anything longer and you get chaser emails.

 

[Ubermensch]

"One year on Shopify!"

Lol. This one's for @KLaw

@Cyriex and me both know that - if the OP's numbers are accurate - looks like @Sanj Modha is currently beating both @theag 's annual profit and revenue numbers.

Hey, @Sanj Modha , here is an honest proposition for you. Perhaps you could sell Cups of STFU.

@theag is obviously a prime candidate for a Nice Cup of STFU.

Currently, Cups of STFU sell for between $9.95 and $15.00

I have discovered a huge, massive "NEED" on the internet: Guys on the internet who make way less money than the guys they talk shit to.

Such people, I think, represent a massive market for Cups of STFU. Whenever some guy, who makes way less money than another guy, feels the nerve to talk ish, he can just have a nice Cups of STFU.

Cups of STFU would not only save little money pretenders from attacking a real-life Alpha lion, it would also rid the Internet of much of the fakery and bullshit that gives Internet forums a bad name in the first place.

Anyway, OP is lion $HIT.

Carry on.